


Lance's Peril

by IronScript



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Assassin - Freeform, Gen, Keith doubting himself, Minor Violence, No Character Death, Poison, Pre-Slash, Sick!Lance, after the Lion switch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 17:29:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13529130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronScript/pseuds/IronScript
Summary: Inspired by The Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan (hence the name). So, you know, spoilers for that.So, in one of the books there’s a scene where one of the main characters is poisoned by an assassin, and he only has so long to live before it takes his life. Pretty standard, right?The interesting part was that when his companions later went and captured the assassin to try and get the antidote, it turned out that he had two types of poison on him, and the attacker wasn’t exactly forthright about which poison had been used, and of course using the wrong antidote would be a BAD IDEA.Now with that bit of backstory, let’s move onto the Klance…





	Lance's Peril

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own neither Voltron or The Ranger's Apprentice, which inspired this. 
> 
> Enjoy! :)

Keith’s hands shook the barest amount as he considered their options. 

Lance was down for the count, and he’d be down in a far more permanent sense if Keith didn’t manage to figure this shit out.

God fucking damn it.

Why the hell had Shiro decided he was the best choice to fly the Black Lion? Obviously he wasn’t cut out for this shit. 

Lance was the one who knew how to read a situation, the one who always seemed to have a plan.

Unlike Keith, whose impulsiveness had gotten them in this situation in the first place.

Not only had he gotten his  _rivalbestfriendcrush_  poisoned, of all things, but he had no idea how to solve the puzzle in front of him.

* * *

The Galra assassin in front of him sneered down at him, disregarding him as a non-threat despite how Keith had him trapped against a boulder, sword at his throat. 

He knew that Keith couldn’t do anything to him if he wanted the Blue (now Red) Paladin to survive, and if he’d learned anything trailing the two, it was that in the halfling’s eyes, the new Red Paladin took priority over pretty much anything else. 

What he hadn’t anticipated, however, was just how far Keith was willing to go.

* * *

Keith’s eyes widened in realization as he finally figured out how he might be able to save Lance, and he prayed to any deity that may or not be listening (he had always been agnostic, considering himself open-minded to pretty much anything, and his experiences in space had only made his stance more firm) that this would work.

He grabbed a hold of the throwing dagger that had gotten Lance, trying not to look at the blood that he hadn’t had the heart to wash off.

Glancing over to where his teammate lay, he saw Lance more still than he ever was naturally, breaths shallow and brown skin far paler than it should be as he struggled to fight the poison and stay alive.

He was losing, that much was clear.

Keith could NOT let that happen.

With that thought, he brought the blade up to the assassin and cut him deeply on his left arm. He didn’t know if Galra physiology was like human’s, but he hoped that the placement of their hearts were similar enough.

As if Keith would know. He knew from previous medical exams that his own body wasn’t noticabely different than a regular human’s, but he wasn’t entirely Galra, so for all he knew it was just that his human genes had won out in that area.

* * *

“W-what–!” the assassin’s eyes widened in horror as he registered what the Black Paladin had just done, pushing past the pain of the action and focusing on the more important part: the excruciating and slow poison that had just been entered into his system.

He wasn’t afraid of dying, per say, but if he had a choice in the matter he would not have chosen this. When the witch Haggar had sent him on this mission she’d instructed him to make it painful, which he had been entirely willing to do, but this wasn’t what he had signed up for.

* * *

“Come on.” Keith tugged at the assassin harshly, grabbing him tightly by the other arm as he forced the alien in front of him, making sure his hands were still bound. “Time for a walk. We’ve got to get that blood pumping, after all. You may not care about his life, but I’ve dealt with self-serving assholes like you before, and I’m sure you’ll go against orders if it means saving your own skin.”

* * *

The assassin gasped for breath, trying to get enough air in his lungs as the new leader of Voltron forced him to keep walking. 

He hadn’t been allowed even a mere tick to rest, the halfling entirely dedicated towards making the poison spread as quickly as possible, and the assassin knew that he’d soon be in worse shape than the Paladin. After all, the affects were accelerated if the victim tried to work through it. The Red Paladin’s body, at least, was currently directing all of it’s energy towards keeping him alive, but he himself had no such advantage.

“If I die, so does he.” the assassin gasped. “You know this.”

“Oh, I’m not intending for either of you to die.” the Black Paladin responded, and the assassin was honestly caught off guard by that information. “You will tell me which antidote to use, and I’ll let you use it, too.”

Ah. That made more sense.

He snorted. “I’ve no reason to trust a filthy deserter like you. I’ll take my chances.”

“I’m just as much a human as I am Galra, if not more so.” Keith said idly. “I would hardly call myself a deserter if I didn’t know Galra existed until a few months ago.”

The assassin twitched at the unfamiliar term. What was a ‘month’? A unit of time measurement?

Then he realized that the halfling had probably intentionally thrown in the word to try and unsettle him, and it had almost worked. 

He couldn’t let this upstart win.

* * *

Another short time later, Keith having kept a careful eye on Lance to make sure he was still alive and fighting, and he figured the assassin was probably about ready to give up.

If the difference in pallor on Lance was unnerving, then seeing the naturally purple-skinned Galra with near lavender skin was even more so, though Keith was understandably less concerned about him.

Their attacker had been trying, he figured, to make it seem as if the poison hadn’t affected him, but the steadily more violent jerks and tremors gave him away, as did his eyes, which were slowly turning a dark orange instead of their usual yellow.

“So, let’s try this again.” Keith offered as he forced them to a stop near where the assassin’s bag laid a short distance from Lance. 

He shoved the full Galra to the side and went to retrieve the two antidotes from the bag, before turning towards the assassin.

“Which one is the right antidote?” he asked simply.

* * *

The Galra struggled to contain a dark grin as he tried to put up a meek and feeble act, gesturing slowly towards one of the mixtures and lowering his head in apparent defeat.

The Black Paladin would treat the Red with it, and in his panic once he realized that it was the wrong one which would do more harm than good, he would attack and do away with them both before treating himself with the real one.

Simple, but then again all of the best plans were.

What he didn’t expect was for the Black Paladin to hum skeptically before preparing a dose of the antidote and bringing it to  _his_  arm, not his teammate.

* * *

Keith’s shoulders relaxed slightly as he took in the assassin’s telling flinch away from the antidote Keith had been prepared to use on him. 

He wasn’t as tactically-minded as Lance or Shiro, but he wasn’t completely inept, now that the Cuban was getting him to think about the consequences of his actions more.

Granted, Keith’s trust issues would’ve made him wary of being double-crossed anyway, so he liked to think he wouldn’t have fallen for the ploy in the first place.

With that, he tossed the antidote towards the assassin, who actually dodged it, and grabbed the correct one, immediately going to where Lance was laying a few dozen meters away.

He only hoped he’d figured it out in time. 

* * *

(Luckily, he had.)

**Author's Note:**

> Please review! :)
> 
> Also, feel free to check out [My Store](https://www.etsy.com/shop/RayvnashesButtons)!


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